The midterm elections don’t take place solely on Nov. 3, said Chris Brennan in USA Today. With about 8 million votes cast early or by mail, they’re “already underway”— and so are President Trump’s “attempts to disrupt the process.” Insisting without evidence that voter fraud is widespread, his administration sued California recently to keep the state from counting the ballots of 20,000 voters it alleged are noncitizens. His Department of Homeland Security already tried claiming that 15,000 noncitizens were registered in Nevada; DHS later narrowed the list to 185—and Nevada then found all 185 were citizens. Trump has publicly stated elections were rigged or fraudulent on more than 70% of days since his return to office, and his claims are growing more desperate, with Democrats “poised to take control of Congress and bring oversight and accountability to his second term.
Local and state officials are now bracing “to defend their elections against what used to be a reliable ally”: the federal government, said Zolan Kanno-Youngs in The New York Times. Trump is falsely claiming voting machines can be rigged or hacked by foreign governments; earlier this year, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and seized voting records from the 2020 election. The president’s most rabid supporters are “urging him to consider drastic actions,” such as declaring martial law. Motivated by “a growing sense of alarm,” about 10 current and former national security officials are “discreetly advising” states on how to prepare for election interference, said Noah Robertson in The Washington Post. Among the possible threats: deployment of troops or ICE to polling sites to scare away voters, the seizure of ballots or election machines, and threats to arrest and prosecute election officials.
But so far, “Trump’s election meddling lies mostly in ruins,” said David Ignatius, also in The Washington Post. He’s “failed in nearly every phase of his assault,” thanks to “determined legal resistance.” The Supreme Court blocked him from using the Postal Service to limit mail-in ballots. States keep refusing demands to hand over voter rolls. If Trump “were a batter in a baseball game, he would have struck out, over and over.” Hundreds of lawyers are working with Democrats “to prevent election sabotage,” but the best defense “is an anti-Trump turnout at the polls so large that even he can’t challenge it.”